This Amateur Pool Champ Doesn’t See Limits and Doesn’t Want You to Either

It would have been easy for Chad McDaniel—born with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) type 3, a congenital collagen disorder characterized by weakened bones, diminutive stature, and the distinct blue sclera of the eyes—to let his diagnosis dictate what he could and couldn’t do. Instead, he saw opportunity.

“I’ve always seized every day and tried to get the most out of it that God gives me,” McDaniel told The Epoch Times in a recent interview.

This is where perspective and optimism really make a difference in how an individual’s life is lived.

“I saw obstacles, but I didn’t dwell on them too much,” he said. “I did what I wanted to do and found a way to do it. I wasn’t going to sit here and wallow in my own pity over something that I couldn’t do. I found a way to participate. Like [as a kid] with baseball, I would start announcing and keeping score and doing the books for the teams and things like that.”

When it came to the game of pool, which he discovered at age 11, McDaniel knew he wanted to be more than an observer. With a mastery of geometry and physics, a custom-engineered adaptive bridge, and a strategic mind, McDaniel became a fiercely competitive pool player.

It is his pool hustling that caught the eye of “96 Pounds of Dynamite” director and producer Loren Goldfarb. From the moment the award-winning former TV news producer first spotted McDaniel at a pool hall in Florida, he was intrigued.

“When I first saw Chad, I never thought he’d be the star of a documentary,” Goldfarb told The Epoch Times. “As a pool player, I was just curious about how he played. It was after I saw him totally crush an opponent at a regional tournament and make it to the national competition that the idea of a film hit me. After spending time with Chad at his home, I knew audiences would find him inspiring, engaging, and hilarious. He’s truly one of a kind.”

“96 Pounds of Dynamite”—available on VOD; Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, on May 11—follows McDaniel, 54, in the months leading up to a top amateur tournament. The film explores the multitude of obstacles life with brittle bone disease (Osteogenesis Imperfecta) presents, and how one man from humble roots fights low expectations and discrimination with wit, grit, and determination.

“Him finding me was just a God thing,” McDaniel says of Goldfarb. “No other way to put it. We had a mutual friend that I worked with and he messaged me on Facebook and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this friend that’s a TV producer, he wants to make a movie about you. He’s seen you play pool and he’s really interested in meeting you.’ It just took off from there.”

From the time he was young, the Mississippi native was determined to check off the to-do list of an “ordinary” life that so many of us take for granted—education, marriage, parenting, work—and then some. “I want people to understand that whatever the circumstances, you can get the best out of life,” McDaniel said.

It’s not that the road was always smooth and welcoming. As a kid growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, the world was just beginning to pay attention to how to educate kids needing special accommodations. For the first two years of his schooling, McDaniel was placed in a classroom for children with intellectual disabilities, with the local school district fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of his condition.

Despite that inauspicious start, McDaniel’s life took flight. “It was pretty amazing going off by myself to college,” he said. “And I didn’t come home like a normal college student—bringing all the laundry and expecting it to be washed or what have you. As a matter of fact, the longest I ever stayed home was maybe two weeks, and that was because I was sick and I had to stay a week extra there. I really went out and I made a life for myself.”

From day one, his mom, Jensie Magee, was his fiercest advocate. “She encouraged independence, strength; [to not] be afraid of new things, to try new things, to do new things,” McDaniel recalled. Later, his beloved stepfather, Audie Magee, joined his cheer squad.

Retired after 27 years as a Defense Department contractor, McDaniel, 54, plans to spend more time with his wife Allison, who also has OI, along with her two children from a previous marriage, whom he helped raise, and their grandkids.

And of course, there will be more pool tournaments. “Practice, practice, and more practice,” he said about the secret to a player’s success.

“A friend of mine once said, ‘You hit a million balls, and when you’re done, you hit a million more.’ Because that’s what it takes. It takes dedication at the table. For me, it’s a little harder because I’m not exactly a cookie cutter of a pool player.”

2027 is bringing some big goals to that plan. “They are finally changing the wheelchair challenge from 8-Ball to 9-Ball. 9-Ball is my better game,” McDaniel said. “I’m about to get pretty hyper focused back on my 9-Ball game.”

Back at their home in Melbourne, Florida, the couple are fixtures in their neighborhood, tooling around in their power wheelchairs, heading to their favorite happy hours and restaurants.

“I hope people understand that they can strive in life and succeed regardless of the obstacle, physical or whatever,” McDaniel said about the film’s upcoming release. “I did well. I want people to understand that whatever the circumstances, you can get the best out of life.”